Pat Rollins: Finally, hitting the rut just right

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Posted Nov. 27, 2012 at 3:15 AM

Posted Nov. 27, 2012 at 3:15 AM

For nearly 25 years my buddies and I have planned a deer hunting trip to central New York state’s farm country. We try to plan our week to take advantage of the peak of the rut which generally occurs somewhere between the 15th and the 20th of November. Most of the time we seem to either get there a couple days to early or a few days to late. Occasionally, we hit it perfectly and when we do big bucks seem to come out of the wood work. When my friend Dick, who owns the huge farm we hunt, came out of the barn with a big grin, I knew we were in for a special week.

“You must have a lucky rabbit’s foot in your pocket,” he said as we shook hands. “We’re smack in the middle of the peak of the rut and there are monster bucks running all over the farm. Yesterday when I was out in the big clover field up back I saw a real monster that I’ve never seen here before.”

I climbed from the truck and we stood there in the barn yard catching up before he explained just where they had been seeing the big bucks. He even made a few suggestions about where we should position our tree stands.

“If I were you,” he advised, “I wouldn’t be too quick to pull the trigger this year. There are several really good whitetails on the farm including a couple heavily racked bucks that should easily dress out near 250 pounds.”

As soon as he told me that, I knew exactly where I wanted to position my primary tree stand. So as soon as we climbed back in the truck, I headed up the hill behind the barns and made my way through a massive clover field and around the edge of a huge field of standing corn that they were about to pick.

I parked my truck near the back corner of the field and grabbed a ladder stand from the back of the truck and Mike and I made our way down a tote road to the edge of a softwood thicket near a steep bank.

As soon as we reached the spot Mike turned to me and said, “what a textbook pinch point.”

“Look at the deer trails,” I said. “There’s a main trail that runs along the edge of that big gully, and another one that cuts through that pine thicket, not to mention the trail that cuts straight to that corn field.”

“Man, they all intersect right here in front of that big ash tree,” Mike said.

“And the light comes on,” I replied with a chuckle. “I’ve had a tree stand in that ash tree for 15 years. If this is truly the peak of the rut I’m counting on a big mature buck to come right by this stand.”

Mike and I quickly positioned the stand and once we had it secured to the tree, I climbed 15 feet up the ladder into the two-man stand where I attached the roof and wrapped the frame in its camo cover.

“It doesn’t get any better than this,” I said to Mike, who had just returned from checking out the deer trail that cut through the pine grove.

“You oughtta see the fresh scrapes in that trail,” he revealed. “There’s a huge primary scrape not 30 yards from your stand!”

For three days I sat all day long in that stand, passing up two smaller bucks and a number of does. Then on the fourth day I’d been in the stand for about four hours when I caught some movement in those thick pines. It was a big doe and she was trotting straight down the trail. I stood up and grabbed my gun as I watched her trot by without slowing down at all.

I focused on the area she came from and within seconds I saw a small four-pointer, its nose to the ground, following the same route the doe had used. With only four more days to hunt, I thought about taking the buck, just for a moment. Then I heard branches shifting from within the thick pines.

I stood there for what seemed like 15 minutes, staring into the softwoods looking for what caused the commotion, I don’t know where he came from, but when I turned to my left, there he was — a massive wide-racked monster scratching at the ground in the middle of that scrape. I raised my 12-gauge shotgun, waited for the buck to turn broadside and put the crosshairs of my scope on the mark and gently squeezed the trigger, filling my buck tag with a huge 234-pound, eight-point buck.

Everyone who came on this trip filled their buck tags with impressive bucks. Next year we’ll plan our trip around the same dates and if we’re lucky enough to hit the rut at its peak, I can’t wait to see what comes by the stand.